There is a lyrical sensitivity to "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," a new seven-episode series on HBO based on the wildly popular novels of Alexander McCall Smith that feature a detective in Botswana named Precious.

The series, shot on location in Africa, was delayed after the unfortunate deaths of film director Anthony Minghella (who co-wrote and directed the two-hour premiere) and filmmaker Sydney Pollack, who was an executive producer. The series was picked up and continued by Richard Curtis (who won an Emmy for the HBO movie "The Girl in the Cafe" and who was Oscar-nominated for "Four Weddings and a Funeral"). In addition, powerhouse brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein are executive producers.

Clearly a lot of people care for "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and it is lovingly shot and deftly acted all the way, from Jill Scott as Precious to cute little Mosako Mogara as Wellington, the Botswana street kid who helps out at the agency. In fact, there's so much sweetness and kid-glove comfort in this series that it ought to be on CBS. That's probably something you'll ask yourself if you're an HBO subscriber.

Which gets at one of the few problems with "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency": It doesn't feel like an HBO series, if there is such a thing. That whole "It's Not Television - It's HBO" thing was concocted for a reason - and not to come back to bite the channel in the hind parts because it created an innocent little series that would make the Hallmark people proud.

If you have no content restrictions from nervous advertisers or the possibly meddling Federal Communications Commission, do you have to show nudity, raw sex, extreme violence and ceaseless profanity? Clearly not. But HBO has prided itself on delivering some semblance of real-life grit, be it "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood" or even the modern musings of "Entourage" or "Sex and the City."

A CBS-like series

More to the point, people actually pony up cash for premium channels so they can get what they can't find on a network. If HBO is CBS, is that a bad thing? No - because CBS makes some superb examples of professional-grade television. And an argument could be made that CBS would not have shot in Botswana. They might have tried to find something similar - in Canada.

And yet, given that "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is both enriching entertainment and of high quality, what's to complain about? Doesn't HBO have the right to go against type, to have a quaint heroine instead of a vile antihero?

Sure, it's just television, right?

Beyond the arguments of place, what's to be discussed about an adaptation of popular books by a collection of talented film people? Well, they certainly loved the polite, bordering on languid, everyday interactions between Precious Ramotswe and the people she meets when she opens her detective agency. Her secretary, Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose), is a detail-oriented perfectionist who graduated with the highest scores in secretarial school and has enough good manners not to ask about getting paid for her work until there's a paying client (of which there are not many to begin with).

Precious also meets the gentlemanly auto mechanic JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati), who has enough good manners not to make a pass at Precious. And there's sweet and sage hairdresser BK (Desmond Dube), who has enough good manners not to sass people who notice that he acts like, well, a hairdresser. Everybody is nice. They mill about the little town of Gabarone as if they were in an English costume drama being filmed by the BBC.

Obviously the intended tone of the series is a kind of mannered, harmonious pro-Botswana lilt. It was a hell of a lot rougher in Jessica Fletcher's Cabot Cove. (Maybe CBS didn't make this series because it was too soft?) Fine - perhaps that's harsh. But you half expect the bad guys in "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" to carry white gloves for face slapping instead of big pistols for forehead whipping.

Sweet appeal

On the other hand, had HBO turned this into a dark, pulse-pounding thriller, fans of Alexander McCall Smith would be livid. Part of the appeal for many might be the fanciful sweetness, the beautiful location and the charming smarts of Precious herself as she takes her first tentative steps at solving crimes (and if not crimes, then small transgressions of the heart or ethical lapses in dentistry).

Scott, a Grammy-winning singer, puts a lot of love into Precious. She drinks tea and thinks until theories and motivations for crimes come to her, often by accident. You might want to hug her, but hire her?

Rose plays the uptight secretary thing to the hilt, and it takes a couple of episodes before the writers give her more range; by then it's almost too late. Msamati is definitely the kind of mechanic - and gentleman caller - you might want in your life. And Dube's infectious smile makes DK adorable; they don't call him gay.

Ultimately, everybody's affable in this series. There are no sharp right angles, no emotional elbows.

If that's what you subscribe to HBO for, then you might love this show. Otherwise, it might be too precious.